


The Storyteller

by flung0ut0fspace



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Bly Manor, ENDLESS TEARS, F/F, I'll never stop crying, I'm still crying, dani x jamie, in canon, it's me it's you it's us, these two are too beautiful for this world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flung0ut0fspace/pseuds/flung0ut0fspace
Summary: In the wee hours of a sleepless night, as Viola's ghost consumes her more by the day, Dani and Jamie confess hard truths about the path ahead and revisit the memory of their first night together.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 8
Kudos: 277





	The Storyteller

**Author's Note:**

> So this show...broke me? In the most beautiful way. And so I am coping by writing fic to fill in the gaps of my imagination to flesh out their love story just a tad more.

Dani couldn’t find sleep. The radio clock on her nightstand glowed red with 2:45. Outside, the moon shone bright over a Vermont autumn.

As she looked out her window, she felt something slip away. It was small, just a breath, but her connection to the world was leaving her, little by little, as she knew it would. She could see the moon, the stars, the trees. But she couldn’t connect them to each other or herself the way she knew she ought to. The way someone truly alive, truly themselves, ought to.

The lights of a car moved past the window, casting a slant of light that suddenly revealed Viola’s blank face. Dani startled in bed, but not quite so violently as she had once done. The sight of Viola’s reflection was becoming more and more frequent, more than she could admit to the sleeping woman beside her. 

Dani turned to face Jamie, curled on her side, breathing low in slumber. Peaceful. How Dani longed for that peaceful sleep, like the one she had had that first night she slept beside her wife, years before they would come to call each other that.

She knew her love for Jamie was the last and strongest bond tethering her to this life, and that it would tether her long after she was gone, until it was time to reunite. But she knew, deep in the bottom of her heart that was still hers, that where she was going, Jamie could not follow. Not yet. And she would never wish a fate so cruel upon her love as to visit upon her night after night, rendering her life a long, yawning wait until they could see each other again. She remembered what Jamie said in the kitchen that day, in their earliest days of meeting, about the mercy of letting someone go when she is no longer herself. Dani believed that when the time came, as it would soon, the greatest act of mercy and love she could give to Jamie would be the absence of her ghost.

Lost in thought, Dani delicately placed a fallen hair behind Jamie’s ear. Jamie stirred at the touch, eyes fluttering awake to see Dani’s, one blue, one brown, glistening with tears back at her.

Instinctively, Jamie leaned forward to kiss her restless wife, placing an arm around her and pulling her closer. The women faced each other in silence. Jamie waited for Dani to speak. Perhaps it was the silence, perhaps it was the hour of night and the stillness on the air, but Dani felt only capable of truth, however heartbroken she was to voice it.

“I can feel her getting stronger,” she whispered. Jamie did not immediately respond, but ran a hand through Dani’s long blonde hair. “I know it…hurts you…when I say that, but it’s true.”

“I know.” Jamie managed.

“I’m afraid there won’t be much of me left for much longer.”

At this, both women felt themselves give way to emotion they had been trying to hold back. Jamie’s strength for Dani’s sake was waning, and the reality needed to be spoken aloud. And here it was.

“She will never take you from me, do you understand?” Jamie said through tears.

“Jamie, please. You know what’s coming for me…” Dani reasoned.

“No. Listen to me. You will never age for me. You will never die. Not truly. Whatever happens. However little of you remains, even when none of you remains, I will keep you alive. In my memory. In stories. I promise you that. Don’t ever be afraid. Whatever she does, whatever happens, I will love you and keep you forever. That’s the promise I made and I don’t intend to break it. Death do us part be damned.”

Jamie smirked a little on the last line. Dani couldn’t help but flash a small smile. The lovers kissed, a promise re-made. When they parted, their minds began to wander back in time. Dani curled against Jamie. Jamie held her wife tight.

“Tell me one,” Dani asked quietly. “Tell me a story. About us.”

“Only if you’ll help,” Jamie replied, kissing the top of Dani’s head. “If you’re gonna haunt me, I’d hate for it to be because I’ve messed up the details.”

Dani could only muster a breath of a laugh at that.

“Tell me the story of the first night. The moon flower.”

Jamie closed her eyes as the memories began to swim in her head.

“You had that fuzzy purple coat. I loved that coat.” Dani honked a laugh at the reminder. Jamie continued.

“I told you…everything. I remember thinking, before that night…people never seem worth it, but this one, this Poppins. Damnit I think she might be. I’d never felt that way about anyone. And so…I cut my heart open and showed you what was inside. My past, my pain…the way I knew how to love, hoping if you heard it, you’d understand that I was asking you to love me. And to be patient while I learned how to love you. And suddenly there you were beside me, looking at me like…I don’t know. Like no one had ever looked at me. Like I was magic. And you kissed me. And I knew you were sure. Really sure. And I suddenly realized that the thing I was feeling, the relief, the…belonging that I felt with you. It wasn’t that I’d found someone worthy of my love. It’s that someone had finally found me worthy of hers.”

Dani lifted her head from Jamie’s chest and looked deep into her eyes. She leaned up and kissed her deeply.

“How was that?” Jamie asked, breaking the weight of the moment but not the spell.

“Good. But incomplete,” Dani said, not exactly teasing.

“Please, fill in the gaps.”

Dani smiled and adjusted herself to deliver her side of the story.

“You missed the part where I realized I couldn’t waste one more second not kissing you, or falling in love with you, or making sure you knew how much I wanted to kiss you and fall in love with you.”

Jamie’s eyes glowed with tears as she waited for Dani to continue.

“My whole life, I knew something was missing. It was like there was a secret that I was keeping from myself. I loved Edmund, I really did, but…I felt…asleep. All the time. Going through the motions. And when I broke things off with him, the most I had figured out was that I was asleep. But I knew that wasn’t all of it. And then…I met you. And I knew right away. This is it. This is the part that wasn’t there before. And that first night we kissed, I was ready but I wasn’t, you know? And then…when you told me your whole life, and you told me how you felt. I was so amazed that someone could have gone through so much and still be the kindest, most caring person I’d ever met. Somewhere in the middle of your story…I woke up. I woke up and you were standing there. And I realized I had never loved anyone or anything so much ever before in my life and suddenly there was nothing in the world more important than kissing you. And touching you. And feeling what it felt like to be touched by you…all of these things that I thought I would never deserve or know how to want. Standing in front of me talking about life, death, plants. And I did. I did know you were asking me to love you. And I just…I was so excited to show you that I would.”

Jamie was overcome with love for her wife as the two women suddenly transported back to that night. They didn’t need to speak aloud what happened next, as their bodies took over the retelling. 

—————

Jamie and Dani clung to each other in the dappled moonlight, unwilling and seemingly unable to break their kiss, as if doing so would break a spell. But here in the shadow of the garden they could only see what moonlight revealed, and it wasn’t enough. 

They parted, and it was Dani, as Jamie knew it must be, to voice the need of the moment.

“Will you stay the night?” she asked in a haggard breath. Jamie replied with a strong, deep kiss as she took Dani by the hand and the pair marched determinedly toward the house. 

Their path was unsteady and delayed, as Dani occasionally could not help herself from pinning Jamie against a tree and resuming their kissing, like a thirsty woman finding relief from years of drought. 

Finally, they made their way through the grand doors of the manor. Once past the threshold, Dani haphazardly discarded her bright purple coat on the front table. This wouldn’t do for Jamie, who removed her own and went to retrieve Dani’s. Of course, Dani took the opportunity to corner Jamie at the table in another devastating kiss, this time feeling brave enough to slip a hand beneath Jamie’s t-shirt. Jamie laughed and smiled against the kiss, tickled. 

“We’re almost there, I promise,” she breathed. Dani made a small sound in protest, impatient and eager. Jamie couldn’t deny it was driving her a bit more than wild, and she was quick to toss the coats on a nearby rack and never think of them again.

The pair bounded up the stairs. Jamie, in her eagerness, tripped over her own bootlace. Dani yelped a bright, sudden laugh that Jamie, chuckling, shushed. 

“The children!”

“Oh, they’re asleep.” Dani insisted. Jamie didn’t dare disagree.

At long last, the pair found their way into Dani’s room which happily contained the necessary items: a bed, and a door that could close and lock.

As the soft thud of the door sounded, and the click of the latch, Dani turned into the room to find Jamie having a look around before sitting down on the bed, nonchalant and unassuming.

“Nice digs, Poppins. Classic, but somehow distinctly American. Really suits you…”

“No more talking.”

In two strides, Dani was at the edge of the bed and suddenly pinning Jamie back onto the duvet, smattering her with kisses. Dani immediately began struggling to remove her sweater. 

“Let me,” Jamie said, taking charge of the moment. She sat up, keeping Dani on her lap, and pulled Dani’s sweater and t-shirt off in one go, revealing her bra and bare skin. Jamie took a moment to admire her. A vision she had thought of many nights in the past few months, now before her, more real and splendid than she’d imagined. She put her lips to Dani’s abdomen and up her body to what bare skin of her breast she could touch, causing Dani to shudder and giggle in pleasure.

Dani pulled Jamie’s face to hers for another deep, passionate kiss, as she reached down to remove Jamie’s Blondie t-shirt, revealing Jamie to not be wearing a bra.

“Oh wow,” Dani blurted, immediately blushing in embarrassment. Jamie just laughed and pulled her for another kiss, skillfully unclasping Dani’s bra. Before removing it, Jamie pulled away only briefly, making pointed eye contact with the flushed, giddy woman above her.

“You’re sure? You’re sure sure?” she asked.

“Yes.” Dani said with more certainty than Jamie had ever heard from her. In a gesture, Dani’s bra was discarded with the tops on the floor. Jamie took in the sight of Dani’s bare upper body, the women now suddenly vulnerable. 

Jamie took Dani’s face in her hands and brought their foreheads together.

“Oh wow,” she said softly. It was sexy, but more than that, it was safe. “You’re so beautiful, Dani.” To be Dani in this moment, not Poppins. She felt confident, assured, exactly how she wanted to feel as she navigated this wild unknown.

Dani kissed Jamie, long and sincere. Slowly, she crawled off of Jamie’s lap and stood before her. In the low, warm lamplight of the bedroom, Dani gingerly but confidently removed her trousers and pants, taking her time, tracking Jamie’s eyes as they watched her every movement.

Without words, Jamie, breath heaving, stood where she sat at the edge of the bed and mirrored Dani’s actions. The lovers took in the sight of the other, staggering and beautiful. For Jamie, it was a closeness and vulnerability she was unsure she would ever feel with another soul. For Dani, it was the fulfillment of a wish she had never thought she would find the courage to voice, let alone make real. They had never wanted anything more than each other in this moment.

But it overwhelmed them, Dani especially.

Jamie took a confident step toward her trembling love and took her hands in hers, leaning her forehead against Dani’s.

“Are you all right?”

Dani shook a quick nod, their foreheads still together. “I’m just…” a grin bloomed across her face as tears appeared in her eyes, “I’m so happy.” She laughed a happy sob that Jamie caught in a kiss, pulling her close, letting their bodies make contact at last. It sent a shiver down them both.

Jamie guided them back to the bed and laid Dani down on the now untucked sheets. Gently, Jamie came to be above her. And finally, Dani asked the question hanging over the entire scene.

“Have you done this before? I mean, with a woman?”

Jamie wasn’t sure how to answer, but knew lying wasn’t an option.

“Er…once or twice.”

“Good, ‘cause I haven’t,” Dani said, her eagerness restored, leaning up and kissing a pleasantly surprised Jamie suddenly and passionately. Jamie took her cue to lead and allowed her hands to roam across Dani’s skin.

Hands were joined by lips and tongue as Jamie began exploring her way down Dani’s shivering body, taking care to give attention to her breasts. Soon enough, Jamie found herself below Dani’s abdomen. Her legs parted, indicating her want, but Jamie took nothing for granted.

She looked up and found tearful, overwhelmed eyes staring back. Without asking the question aloud, Dani nodded vigorously. Jamie kissed along the soft muscle of Dani’s inner thigh, calming her trembling only slightly, before letting her lips and tongue discover.

Dani’s back arched as if she had been struck by lightning in slow motion, bringing a hand to cover her face and muzzle her need to cry out. With the other, she gripped the bedsheets until Jamie brought her hand for Dani to hold, clutching it with white knuckles.

Not wanting the joy to be over so quickly, Jamie kissed her way slowly back up Dani’s body. When she reached her face, she left it to Dani to decide if she wanted to taste her lips. Dani’s eyes still glistened with tears of happiness and ecstasy, and without thinking, pulled Jamie down in a hurried, greedy kiss. Dani kept her legs apart as Jamie moved between them, and without another word, the joyful hunger having taken over the moment, Jamie moved her right hand where her lips had just been.

Dani could not stifle the sudden sound that escaped her as Jamie entered her. She gripped Jamie’s back to her, her head thrown back as Jamie lay wet kisses on her neck, her collarbone, her breasts. As their movements began to sync and quicken, Dani felt herself on the brink, a precipice she had never reached before. Jamie could sense her tensing up and locked eyes with her, assuring her they were here, now, together, and that wherever she was going was safe.

Within moments, Dani shuddered down the length of her spine, pulling Jamie down to her, making them as close as souls could be as she let the shocks of her climax course through her. Jamie smiled into the crook of Dani’s neck, waiting for her breathing to subside before removing her fingers, not wanting to break contact before Dani was ready. They lay like that for minutes it seemed, breathing together, utterly connected. Jamie could feel Dani’s tears and the softer tremors of weeping against her. Slowly, she pulled away, letting Dani roll on to her back and take the space Jamie knew she now needed.

Dani closed her eyes and let herself weep a few moments longer. Jamie didn’t need her to explain. They both knew that Dani wept for joy, for having finally experienced a pleasure she never thought she would find. But she also wept for grief. For the past version of herself, sitting at an engagement party surrounded by loved ones and strangers, numb to the world, resigned to deny herself this feeling for the rest of her life.

But now that she knew how this felt, not only her awakening love for Jamie, but her passion for, she was eager to make up for any time lost sleeping. And so she dried her tears and let her cries bubble into soft laughter. Dani turned to her lover and sighed a deep, contented sigh that gave way to an eager grin.

“Okay. Now can I try?” she asked. Jamie burst into a giddy laugh as Dani rolled onto her side and above Jamie, bending down in a passionate kiss.

And so the women went on like this through the night, until sleep finally caught them mid-kiss, and they settled into each other’s arms for a dreamless sleep, deeper than the dead.

————

Dawn began to break outside the window. Jamie and Dani lay naked together like they had that night, but now with the comfort and familiarity of almost ten years worth of love and promises and care. 

“I reckon that part of the story’s just for us,” Jamie said, breaking the contented silence. Dani laughed against Jamie’s chest.

After a moment, Dani looked up and into Jamie’s dozing eyes.

“I love you more than anything. You know that, right? You are what makes me feel alive. And good. And when this…when she takes me…”

“Stop. Not now,” Jamie said in vague frustration.

“I’m sorry but I have to. I have to say this. I want you to have a life. I won’t be a burden to you. I want you to find someone. I know you don’t want to believe it but I promise you there is someone else out there who’ll be worth the effort. But you know I can’t take you with me. I wouldn’t even wish it. What I wish, because I love you, is for you to go on. Remember me the way you saw me that night, and let someone else make you feel that way some day.”

Jamie couldn’t bear to hear any more.

“Dani. Stop. Please.”

Both women wept.

“I understand why you’re telling me this. I really do. But I’m sorry to tell you, it’s not up to you. It’s not up to you who lives and who dies. It’s not up to me, neither. But it is up to me how long I go on loving you. And I’ve got a lifetime’s worth of love for you. Even if you’re not here for me to give it to. But right now you are. Here. And that’s all that matters to me. So if it’s all right with you I’d like to give you as much of it as I possibly can while I can. And I’m sorry if that overwhelms you, or scares you, or whatever, but that’s just the way it is, Poppins. You’re my wife. And I love you. And I’m going to take care of you.”

Dani smiled through her tears, in love with her all over again. 

“And the funny thing is…I coulda told you all this that very first night. I knew it then.”

“I knew it too.”

“There’s never a goodbye for us, Poppins. Not really.”

Dani leaned forward and captured her wife in a kiss. There was nothing left to be said. This love was ancient, timeless. Nothing death could destroy, only interrupt. And so they lost themselves, kissing and clutching to each other until, like that night in Bly Manor those years ago, sleep crept in and filled their minds with silence, peace, and each other.


End file.
